Advancing the Meme [krakatoa]

Doesn't this admission of impotence sort of validate the presumption that the only way for the Left to wield power with any effectiveness is if they are permitted absolute power, unfettered by the specter of being held responsible for failed programs in the next election?

“Democrats aren’t in charge. The House is obviously run by Republicans, and in the Senate, we have 53 Democrats but the system now is set up so that you need 60 votes to do anything,” Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) said in a C-SPAN “Newsmakers” interview that aired Sunday.

Be nice if someone had a job whose responsibilities included asking follow-up questions. I don't know, that person could be called a 'journalist', and they could ask things like "So when you had control of the Executive & the Legislative, why didn't you go ahead and pass a jobs bill that worked or, hell, even something as fundamental and constitutionally mandated like a budget, instead of spending your political capital on an unpopular health care bill?"

But then, doing so would allow the average reader to grok the hypocrisy in the following statement:

Over 240 days and this Republican Congress has not put forth one jobs plan,” Belcher told CNN anchor Anderson Cooper last month. Democratic operatives defend Belcher’s choice of words, even though Democrats control the Senate.

Of course we see the standard media tactic of providing editorial color to Republican statements. Republicans are "crowing" the success of their dastardly authority.

Democrats' statements are given with no adjectives.

And of course, the final word reinforces the meme. (Although I think they miss the unintentional irony in the statement, which I've emphasized.)

“The facts are that it’s a Republican Congress,” he said.

“There is no disputing the fact that congressional Republicans have repeatedly blocked the bipartisan, paid-for ideas offered up by the president in the American Jobs Act — even though it’s the only plan before Congress that independent analysts confirm would create jobs right away,” said Josh Earnest, a White House spokesman.